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The Kolmogorov option

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Re: The Kolmogorov option

#101

Post by smallnamespace »

pjc50 wrote: post #85
benchaney wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be obvious that anyone arguing against having a rational discussion is wrong about being in that camp.

Not all subjects are amenable to "rational discussion", since it's inherently a restricted format which has implicit rules about what does and does not count as "rational". It also tends to presume its own weightlessness. Men seem very unwilling to recognise that the memo and the discussion itself is harmful.

> Men seem very unwilling to recognise

Honest question: Are we willing apply micro-aggression theory in a uniform and consistent way, or are presumably privileged groups immune to them?

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#102

Post by Ar-Curunir »

cabalamat wrote: post #80
apsec112 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please, before you throw in your lot with him, consider how ridiculous the analogy OP made here is. The Google Manifesto is manifestly not A Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems." Aaronson doesn't mention Google or Damore.

Indeed not. Aaronson is talking about the general case when there are things you can't say that are indeed true. This is useful, because if you can come to correct conclusions for the general case, these conclusions will be useful in instances of that case.

Scott Aaronson is highly unlikely going to be siding with someone using pseudoscience to push their victim agenda.

It's a great insult to the victims of Church oppression in the middle ages and of Soviet policy to compare their hardships to the "hardships" of men working at Google.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#103

Post by danarmak »

mjw1007 wrote: post #42
habitue wrote: post #33

Let's say this is about the Google memo. And let's say, for the sake of argument, you're a person who thinks Damore had some good points and some bad points but you think the hysterically censorious response to him was way over the line. But you don't want to become a pariah yourself, so you stay quiet about it. The argument Damore was making was fiddly, kind of subtle and takes a long time to explain, it's not worth…

So: subtle and qualified defence under a pseudonym; stay quiet under your own name?

The ability to doxx is too great today for pseudonyms to work well enough. The necessary opsec is more akin to that used when publishing illegal things the (real) government actively persecutes.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#104

Post by tpeo »

habitue wrote: post #33

Let's say this is about the Google memo. And let's say, for the sake of argument, you're a person who thinks Damore had some good points and some bad points but you think the hysterically censorious response to him was way over the line. But you don't want to become a pariah yourself, so you stay quiet about it. The argument Damore was making was fiddly, kind of subtle and takes a long time to explain, it's not worth…

Putting Damore's stuff aside for a while (I haven't even read it yet), reasonably discussing anything and having some sort of "Bohm dialogue" is one of the hardest things in the world. Not only it takes quite a bit of mental effort, but it's also easily disrupted.

The loudest and most obnoxious people in the room can very well misrepresent or ignore whatever you said, take a few bits of it and use it to build their own straw-man to bash. It's as if they weren't satisfied enough to just talk/shout past you, but also feel the need to climb over you and make you their soapbox. And it takes a bit of rhetorical smarts to defuse or avoid this sort of stuff, whereas the people who are in favor of actual discussion tend to be a bit naïve when it comes to rhetoric.

Academics, for instance, are often in danger of being eaten alive by the public if their research is even a little bit controversial. In my opinion, all because of this.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#105

Post by Ar-Curunir »

wrinkl3 wrote: post #47
zem wrote: post #28

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain"

I think what he's saying that if Kolmogorov was cautious enough to keep his unpopular opinions to himself, so can you.

But the pre-requisite to this advice is that your belief should have a modicum of truth to it.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#106

Post by Sacho »

DanBC wrote: post #71
kamilner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what about this thread precipitated this comment, but it sounds like you'll be relieved to discover he doesn't think that.

Possibly when zerogravitas says "It's hard to summarize, but he made a comment about how being a nerdy straight male was harder than being a woman or gay".

You(or GP) seem to be implying that all straight white males are nerdy, or that being nerdy has no effect on the hardship you face in life. Which one is it?

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#107

Post by nl »

benchaney wrote: post #74
AndrewOMartin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem with this kind of analysis of the situation is that everyone thinks they're in the "subtle and qualified" camp.

It should be obvious that anyone arguing against having a rational discussion is wrong about being in that camp.

Why?

Is it wrong to be against a rational discussion of the benefits of race-based slavery?

Is it wrong to be against a rational discussion of the benefits of child-slavery?

Is it wrong to be against a rational discussion of the benefits of childhood labor?

Is it wrong to be against a rational discussion of the benefits of racial discrimination?

Is it wrong to be against a rational discussion of the benefits of gender discrimination?

For some things, allowing that rational discussion is a reasonable option legitimizes things that should not be legitimized because they are against the very nature of human rights. For example a rational discussion of race-based slavery is something that legitimizes it as something within the bounds of reasonableness.

I don't know where the boundary is, but I'm sure that is isn't obvious that anyone arguing against having a rational discussion.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#108

Post by benchaney »

vanderZwan wrote: post #91
benchaney wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be obvious that anyone arguing against having a rational discussion is wrong about being in that camp.

The US has a long history of using the "rational discussion" argument to shut rational people up: https://aeon.co/essays/how-cold-war-philosophy-permeates-us-... Also, any sentence with "it should be obvious" raises a red flag with me - usually it is uttered by people don't actually want to reflect on whatever they are asserting to be true.

> The US has a long history of using the "rational discussion" argument to shut rational people up:

The chancelor in the article you cited is arguing in favor of censorship. I am arguing against it. I don't understand why you think there are similarities, unless you are comparing us because we both use the word rational.

> Also, any sentence with "it should be obvious" raises a red flag with me - usually it is uttered by people don't actually want to reflect on whatever they are asserting to be true.

If you have an actual argument to present I would have happy to "reflect" on it, but this sort of meta-argument usually raises a red flag for me because they are usually made be people who are unwilling to discuss the content of the argument being made.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#109

Post by hueving »

macrael wrote: post #34

Tell me, truly, is this a view held by many here? That, as the church denounced Galileo's observation that we turn around the sun as heretical, so too our modern PC culture suppresses legitimate inquiry into wether gender is a determinant of programming aptitude? This is a comparison worth drawing? Galileo was a scientist. He published papers, books, treatises. He devoted his life to the pursuit of the truth, found a…

>James Damore is a junior programmer who wrote a 10 page 'manifesto' accusing his colleagues of having inferior genes.

Did he? I've seen it represented this way but it was my understanding that averages of society were being talked about in the manifesto. So from my understanding it didn't say anything about the women at Google who would presumably be on the far right side of the distribution either way.

Men tend to be more physically violent than women, but that's not saying that a particular group of men is necessarily more or less violent than a particular group of women.

Re: The Kolmogorov option

#110

Post by Piskvorrr »

zem wrote: post #57
wrinkl3 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what he's saying that if Kolmogorov was cautious enough to keep his unpopular opinions to himself, so can you.

yeah, but he was very clearly casting the whole thing as an "emperor's new clothes" situation with the implication that the unpopular opinions were self-evidently true but unmentionable.

That there exist unpopular opinions etc.; in other words, mathematical implication, not equivalence.

From this, it doesn't follow that any unpopular opinion is etc.: I think that the existence of {unpopular and {false and/or mentionable}} opinions is also evident.

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